the developers here designed this home
in the style of a grand European Mansion
but this is all it is right now it's the
shell of a half completed empty house
and this house is just one of more than
a hundred on this site here and this
particular compound is one of many just
like it all across China abandoned empty
a headache for China's policy
makers
we're here in Shenyang City 400 miles
Northeast of Beijing it's in second tier
cities like Shenyang that China's real
estate woses are perhaps the most
visible in some cases you even have
entire compounds of Villas that have
been built but will probably never get
finished one example is the state guest
mansions built by Greenland group one of
the more than 50 housing developers that
have defaulted on their debt in recent
years what lies here now is a skeleton
of a housing project that began
Construction in 2010 but came to a halt
a few years later its Gardens have been
taken over by Farmers hering goats into
makeshift pens the abandoned homes are a
testament to a property crisis long in
the
making yeah this is it Greenland group
says it invested $230 million in this
site alone so here we are this is a
building called grandar place and uh
it's a feels like a big post-apocalyptic
Opera House in Paris or something but as
you can see this is the showroom where
they used to bring interested customers
and show them what the grounds were
going to look like uh what their
Mansions were going to look like but as
you can see now it's uh not what it used
to be you got a chandelier up above with
some fire extinguishers that someone
somehow got up there there's a French
flag lying in tatters on the floor I
think that's part of their French style
sales pitch a decades long real estate
boom prompted developers to take on a
lot of debt to build homes ahead of
demand plans for this site included a
golf course a convention center and a
hotel Greenland sold less than 5% of the
homes here before construction stopped I
think we may be in this building
here um either way
this is the vision that Greenland group
the developer of this project originally
had in mind the developer hasn't given
an official explanation for why it
stopped work here but it doesn't look
like they're about to restart anytime
soon Greenland pre-sold units here
before they were finished something
replicated all across China there are an
estimated 20 million units of pre-sold
but incomplete homes across the country
the huge volume of undelivered apartment
has left many chinesee households in
limbo here we are on the fourth story of
a single family unit that looks like it
was mostly completed you've got all
sorts of different signs of life but I
don't think anyone's been here for quite
a long
time last July Greenland defaulted on
over $400 Million worth of international
bonds despite counting the Shanghai
government as a major shareholder
Greenland hasn't been spared from the
turmoil in China's property
Market Beijing tried to deflate China's
housing bubble by imposing strict debt
and cash flow Targets on developers
property Giants crumbled setting off a
chain of developer
defaults this is just another of the
residential property developments in
Shenyang that have Frozen in their
tracks this one behind me it was started
by China evergr group the country's
largest residential property developer
and one that was ordered to liquidate in
January anuary China everg Grand's rapid
expansion was really emblematic of how
quickly and how important the real
estate market became for China's broader
economy evergrand has left 800,000
pre-sold homes across China unfinished
with a little Prospect of them being
completed everg Grand's collapse
triggered protest by homeowners Furious
that units they had started paying
mortgages for weren't being finished and
all signs indicate things will only get
worse sales of newly built homes fell 6%
in 2023 returning to levels unseen since
2016 and sales are expected to fall
further in 2024 and
2025 evergrand and Greenland group did
not respond to request for comment on
the status of the unfinished
homes for many people in China buying
property was long seen as one of the
most reliable ways to invest your money
but seeing properties like this spread
all over the country has made people
think twice
now many look upon real estate as one of
the least reliable Investments and that
poses an enormous challenge to China's
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government